Pembroke is a relatively new climbing ground. Its complex cliffs, a concrete barrier with gravity on their side, have stood the passing of centuries finger free. Below wave upon wave of Jim Perrin rolls in, a wild, fresh-faced wind scouring the close-cropped grass above. It is its essential simplicity, its Brechtian barrenness, the generous economy of the landscape that makes Pembroke the definition of a sanity-refreshing seaside sojourn. But now they must come, to enact their blatant ballet, across the unswervingly steep stage that remains unmoved, unbowed by this untidy clutter of the doubly insecure.
Harry's old Volvo chugged solidly into St. Govan's car park and we three musketeers of macho, feeling strong in the weak morning sunlight, bounced lightly off down the coast path, the weight of our intentions not affecting our step.
No-one talked during the walk-in to Crystal Slabs, but the muscles gracing our shoulders and bulging beneath our black Ron Hill's preached power. Pete and I, for whom glory was not the spur, for whom the responsibility of rope and camera and body-bag sufficed, fathomed the boundless infinity of our friends commitment.
A sunny day, so we play. Ignoring our dreams for a while, displacing gruesome thoughts that flood too easily into our minds. A slab climb to warm up, dreamily cruised. Muscles, tight from nervous tension, loosening up, limbs smoothing out.
Harry, eating to win, munches Ryvita and Mackerel. "Let's do it!"
Ropes uncoiled, gear, lovingly fingered, racked in a crucial sequence. Boots tightened. No words, unnecessary now in our silent preparation. A last Crunchy bar is slipped into his sock, only then does Harry look up, smiling - deluding himself?
A line, tenuous in the extreme, extreme in its every move, stutters up the wall. He starts; 9, 18, 36, easing, teasing his way upwards. Not our beloved, honest gritstone this, but fickle rock. Pete and I dodge the fruits of an onsight attempt.
Disbelief and doubts answered by power and control. A wide bridge gives pumping arms a rest, a small HB and a speculative Friend provide a prop for the mind. Now he pushes for the top, a double turbo left for a side-pull, slap right - highly sequential, no room for baggy tracksuit bottoms. A bionic dyno, out of balance, feet smear widely! It's slipping away, a summers dream dimming, as wooden forearms fade. Sounds; the sea, a gull, a crab.
The camera shutter clicks, and a hand locks on a jug. Topping out in a nightmare of rubble, the Red Lochan many miles away.
Slowly his face cracked into a bastard of a grin.
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- An account of the first ascent of surely the best Diff. in Pembroke. Provisionally called; "All your seasick boaties, they are rowing home."